"You wanna...uh...back away from my locker, there?" she asked, raising her eyebrows.

He reminded her of a puffer fish; a big yellow one, with venemous spikes protruding from its head and a smirk that said 'Haha, screw you, I could kill you with a headbutt. Loser.'

"Make me." It was a simple reply, one of the simplest there could ever be, yet she had no idea what to say to it. She didn't even know his name: But, then again, he didn't know her's either. The score was zero-to-zero and the first student she'd come into contact with was already rising her boiling point; most noticeable in the form of red tinged cheeks.

There she'd been, looking uncertainly for her new locker to get the books that had been recently stored in it, and there it was. Covered in paste and sticky-notes that read things either vulgar or plain stupid. And there he was, leaning against it in all his bright blonde spiky haired glory, with a smirk and a cup of scorn. How lovely.

He didn't seem to notice her discomfort, and if he did, he ignored it.

"Well?" he asked, slowly trailing his tongue over his lips and leaning even more heavily against her locker. The many assorted nonsensical notes that were pasted--yes, pasted--to her locker rustled under his weight, crinkling with some sick sort of amusement.

She hated her new school already.

"I'm going to be late for Tech Class...you...you." she finished lamely, not knowing how to refer to the puffer fish boy. It was obvious he had pulled this paper-ish stunt, and she really needed to get into her locker. Bad first impressions were not a good idea, so she had to make it to her first class on time.

If possible, he sunk back farther against the combination lock (That had to be uncomfortable.) and put on an expression of pronounced smugness.

"I said already, make me. Newbie." he said, crossing his arms. If possible, her cheeks turned even redder and she gave in to turning around so she didn't have to stare at him. After mumbling "Clean it off.", she walked off and rounded the corner, running off in the direction of where she suspected the gym was--even though she knew she wasn't having P. E. until the last hour of the day and should have been heading in the direction of the technology lab. Anything to get away from Puffy--her new nickname for the arrogant boy.

Somehow, she ended up in the tech. lab. She had no idea how she did it, probably took a wrong turn, but she eventually came to be standing in front of a neon sign that said 'Technology Lab'. Why there was a neon sign in the middle of the hallway and why it said what it did didn't matter; the only thing that did was that she had a hunch she was in the right place. Just a hunch.

After strolling in (Two minutes early, thank god.) and sitting down at the desk she was directed to, she split her attention four ways; forty-nine percent towards the teacher, thiry percent towards the clock, fifteen percent towards her classmates, and six percent towards her feet or fingernails.

Despite the generous amount of attention she directed at her instructor, she wasn't taking in any more words than 'hairy', 'video', 'pots', and 'week'. Her eyes kept flicking back to look at the clock, watching the hour hand's slow ascent towards the nine.

'C'mon...' she thought, 'twelve more minutes.'

Eventually the bell rang, and the whole class hopped up as the teacher called "Due in two weeks!".

'Well, I'm screwed.' She shrugged as she walked out at a much slower pace than the other students; she was not looking forward to returning to her locker and being sneered at again. 'I'm hungry...wonder what's for...'

All thoughts stopped as she turned the corner and laid eyes on her locker. She froze. Where there was once a glop-covered locker there was no longer. In its place was a perfectly uniform door whose nameplate sparkled in the fluorescent light and proudly displayed the numbers '225'. Walking up to it, nervous, she looked around to make sure this was the right hallway.

It was.

"Got some Twilight Zone shit going on here." she mumbled under her breath as she looked over each of her shoulders and saw no one, puffer fish boy included.

Walking up to the locker, she scrutinized it. Nothing seemed out of order...

...other than the fact that an hour ago it was covered in goddamn love notes and death threats.

Still wary, she entered the combination, half expecting the apocalypse as she finished putting in her code.

She got the next best thing.

As soon as she swung her locker open, a huge heap of letters, note, and other assorted pieces of paper fell on her; so much paper, in fact, that the sheer force knocked her to the ground, the papers scattering on the floor around her.

'I'm thinking Death By Paper would make a pretty badass newpaper article.' she thought sardonically as she reached for the nearest piece of paper and read it.

In perfect box letters written in green ink the writer had written 'I rather like you.' and drawn a squiggly little heart.

"What...the fuck." she said, staring with disbelieving eyes down at the paper.

She read through a few more pieces of paper, all of them reading the same thing until she came upon the only brown piece of paper in the bunch. Instead of the usual creepy phrase, it had a single word written in red taking up the entire page.

'War.'

She tossed the paper over her shoulder and stood up. She took the required books from her locker and stepped over the mass of paper, walking down the hall towards her next class. After a few more steps, she stopped and turned around, looking at the glaring mess on the floor in front of her locker. And then she smirked and said, partly to herself and partly to the boy who was who knows where,

"You can count on it, Puffy."